The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-11-05
NEWSPAPER DIRT.
The Government.

There can be no doubt that there is a healthy and growing public senti- ment against dirty or vulgar news papers. The decline of the salacious correspondents, whose chief recom- mendation was that they could write clever double e'atenadres, the suppress sion of the more revolting details of divorce suits and stories of sexual crimes by reputable papers, and the steady downfall of the papers which make capital out of their nastiness, all go to prove that the great reading public is demanding more news and less filth, that public morality, so far as the choice of reading matter is concerned, at least, is improving. The excuse which is always urged by these dealers in newspaper dirt, that they are working in the cause of morality and right by printing all the filthy stories they can huut up or invent, is having less and less weight with newspaper readers. All this is good.
 The Society for the Suppression of Vice has done much toward this end by suppressing or crippliDg certain publications which were notoriously immoral, and it has made it un- healthy, in some sections of this country, and in some cases, to print and circulate such sheets. But MT. Comstock has by no means finished his work, and it is somewhat sur prising that he has left so much, which has been called directly to his attention, undone.
 He swoops wildly down upon some poor wretch who is selling Rabelais, an acknowledged classic he makes things particularly lively for a clerk i'll an art store, who is selling photo- graphs Of paintings actually exhibited in the Paris salon or at Dresden, and he lets the greater scoundrel, who is weekly publishing sheet which pol lutes thousands of minds, slip through his fingers.
 The Jou,maitst has several times pointed out to MT. Comstock places where his undoubted energy might be expended with good effect. There are papers printed in this country to- day, any issue of which is infinitely more dcmoralizing than anything which can be found in Rabelais or Boccaccio-papers whose stock in trade is the nastiness of the police court and the brothel. Yet these papers are not molested. This fact has grown so notorious that it has given rise to the impression, which we believe to be an unjust one, that Mir Comstock is afraid to attack paper. however filthy, which has any "backing." It is undoubtedly true that Mr. Comstock's vigorous prose- cution of little offenders, and his mysterious silence when a larger one appeared on the horizon, has given color to this impression. The general public cannot readily appreciate the peculiar notions of morality which prompts man to condemn a photo graph which is recognized by artists as work of art, while they ignore the type pictures of nastiness and scandal which are weekly presented in pubh- cations to which his attention has been called. This is, however, the business of MT. Comstock, his society, and the people who furnish the money to carry on the work.
 The Journalist has fully done it's share in showing up these pernicious sheets, it has called the attention of MT. Comstock to them, and it has brought them to the notice of the daily press. It has not been especially pleasant work, this handling dirt. It is much more congenial to praise the good and ignore the bad. But it is disgrace to the profession of journal ism that such sheets shoulds be pub- lished, and it is 8 disgrace to the country that they should be allowed to exist at all. We propose to keep right on, hammering away at the papers which soil their pages with unnecessary dirt. And in the end we will be successful in exterminating them.